Below are 10 tips for increasing your Following and traffic on Pinterest:

1. Name your boards as accurately and uniquely as you can. For instance, don't fill a board with pins that don't relate to each other because that makes it difficult to name it. Food boards are probably the hardest to name because of the wide variety. If you like French foods then name your board "French Meals" and not "French Dishes." The Pinterest search engine will put your board in with other types of dishware and China, not foods. If you have a shoe or boot board then name it "Shoes I Love," "Boots" or "High Heels" so the search engine will put them in the proper category.

2. Clothing boards are tricky too. If you create a board to pin outfits then name it "Casual Outfits" instead of "Outfits I Like." The Pinterest search engine will put it in with anything that involves "outfits" and some of those are not clothing boards. The search engine recognizes "Fashion" and "Style" or especially "Street Style." Those are photos of people taken outside instead of being posed by a photographer in a studio or department store.

3. Always use the "Edit" option for every caption on your pins. You need to say something about the pin and why you liked it instead of just leaving someone else's info on the pin.

4. Once you have several boards filled you might want to rearrange them on your page. This is easier to do if you are using a computer. Click on your Settings and follow the instructions for rearranging your boards to give your page better visual "flow." Put boards of similar interest together or group together the boards that you want Pinners to see immediately.

5. The cover pin on each one of your boards is important. You should keep in mind the subject matter of each board and use the option to change the cover. As you click through the pins on the board your eye should tell you which pin will make a great cover showing an example of what your board contains. Always center your cover pin to make it visually appealing.

6.The fastest way to get other Pinners to Follow you is to follow anyone back who pins one of your pins to their board. If you are Pinning from an app on a mobile device you can adjust your settings so Pinterest will send you the names and pins of people who are pinning from your boards. That's how I built my "Respect Yourself" Teen Girls board. I want my board to be filled with pins from teen girls. Their taste and style is different from mine at age 63 so I needed their help to make my board interesting.

7. Pinterest is a great social media tool for businesses, especially those that use a lot of pictures of their products and services. Uploading photos of merchandise can help you sell it faster. You can add other Pinners to your boards to form a "Group" board. This is helpful when you have several people who work for you and will want to add pins to the company boards. They will have to have their own private Pinterest account to be added to a Group board.

8. Pinterest is a great way to expand your hobbies. There are plenty of "DIY" pins to post and share with other people who enjoy the same ones. Collectors can use Pinterest to find other Pinners who may be selling their collections or looking for resources.

9. Planning special events like weddings, showers and birthday parties is easier because of the massive amount of pins on Pinterest with just about every theme you can imagine. You can create private boards for planning surprise parties and only you and a few others will be able to see your pins instead of them going into the Pinterest public news feed.

10. Use the Pinterest search engine and find out what other Pinners are naming their boards. Then you can add those words to name your boards and your pins will be shared more often.